HC reduces sentence of BSNL ex-employee

CHENNAI:  The Madras High Court has reduced the sentences awarded by a lower court to a BSNL employee, who had been dismissed from service on the charge of gratification.  Originally, the Special Court for CBI Cases in Chennai on November 28, 2007 had awarded one-year rigorous imprisonment (RI) for an offence under Sec 7 and another two years RI for offences under Sec 13(2) read with 13(1)(d) of the PCA to S Mahalingam, then working as a telephone mechanic in Koruvapulam Telephone exchange in Nagapattinam district.The charge against the accused was that he demanded and accepted a bribe of Rs 2,000 for providing a phone connection to an aspirant in 2002. He was trapped and caught redhanded. The Special Court for CBI Cases in November, 2007, awarded the sentences, which were to run concurrently. Aggrieved, Mahaling am preferred the present appeal.Justice KN Basha, before whom the appeal came up for hearing, upheld the conviction and sentences awarded by the lower court.The judge, however, considering the fact that the incident had taken place in 2002 and accused Mahalingam had been dismissed from service and that he had been facing the ordeal of the trial, reduced the sentences.